Gideon the Ninth

[lunabee34]

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I really, really liked this book.

The protagonist reminds me a lot of Murderbot (if Murderbot were angrier and more foul-mouthed). I would love to see Gideon and Murderbot interact.

I love the world building; there's a part where Gideon thinks a decoration of human teeth is human and beautiful, and I love all those little touches that make the world she inhabits so alien and strange.

I am very much ready for the next book.



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Wow.

This is so damn good. It's very funny and very emotionally affecting and a very good mystery.

I love how much is left unexplained. I still don't understand exactly what the deal is with the Emperor and what he was in danger from all those years ago. Dying to know who the pretty girl in the tomb is. Really want to understand who or what Gideon is; it's hard not to suspect that the note she found actually refers to her or to an ancestor. Who was her mother, and why did she end up in that air shaft? How did she survive the nerve gas? Cytherea says something toward the end that makes me suspect reincarnation is at play (something like "you all never learn even though we do this over and over again" and the way that Gideon is apparently super badass with a sword despite being told over and over again that she's merely mediocre). What happened to Gideon's body and to Cam? I am not discounting that Gideon will come back in a subsequent book. If she can be reunited with her body, Harrow will find a way.

Don't spoil me, but does Harrow the Ninth live up how awesome Gideon the Ninth is?

Comments

[rydra_wong]

Don't spoil me, but does Harrow the Ninth live up how awesome Gideon the Ninth is?

IMHO: an enthusiastic YES.

I now want to reread Gideon (not least because I am EVEN MORE CONFUSED about various mysteries, in a happy way), but I think I liked Harrow the Ninth even more -- it's the opposite of the common slightly awkward/weaker second-book-in-a-trilogy.

It builds on Gideon the Ninth to do some wild and pyrotechnic stuff with structure, and as lightreads commented, it deploys a bunch of fannish modes of storytelling in a fascinating way.

[lunabee34]

Oh yay!

That all sounds fabulous. :)

I am looking forward to reading it even more now. *sits on hands until pay day*

[rydra_wong]

As someone else commented, it's also a rare case where having read the first book actually makes you more confused for much of reading the second than someone who hasn't.

There's a "... wait, WHAT???" effect which I found delightful.

[lunabee34]

Oh, I love books like that!

[kore]

It actually reminded me of Borges in a lot of ways, if Borges were into lovingly described lengthy arias to bones, LOL. But the methods of Borges, and other post-structuralist fantasist types, and fanfic are pretty similar I think -- but that would involve spoilers.

[kore]

it's the opposite of the common slightly awkward/weaker second-book-in-a-trilogy

YES, definitely. The author could have just written Gideon the 9th over again and raked in the money and acclaim, but instead she really expanded how she plays with structure and narrative and meta, and once I got into it, it was great.

[rydra_wong]

Yeah -- personally, I enjoyed Gideon the Ninth, but Harrowis when I sat up and went "Oh HE-llo, this is REALLY interesting."

[kore]

Yes! I stayed up all night to finish it (LOL whoops) but after that first false start, I was just GRABBED, and it's always so neat to see an artist really taking off like that. That's also pretty amazing because this could have suffered from second book syndrome AND middle boo of trilogy syndrome too, couldn't it? And it just soared.

[lunabee34]

Yes, the second book and the second movie often pale in comparison to the first and third. I'm glad that's not the case here.

[lunabee34]

Oh, y'all are really selling it!

Yay!!!!

[kore]

Again without being too spoilery, hopefully, it's also all about narrative and stories and how we make stories and stories making us and transformative work. Not that reading it's a slog, a lot of the writing is really beautiful. Harrow is very, very Gothy.

Also if you read it you will cry buckets over some bad poetry that you were laughing at in the beginning.

[lunabee34]

Awwwww yis!!!!! Crying buckets is my very favorite passtime.